Why Steve hates the French

The Hungarian Parliament in Budapest, modelled on the Palace of Westminster apparently.

 This was originally the introduction to my goulash recipe post, but acting on feedback that the posts where I go on about history are not particularly popular, I've separated this from the recipe.

I've sometimes felt a bit sorry for Hungary, thinking that they have been on the receiving end of several bum deals throughout history. Or twentieth century history at least; the period of history I am probably most familiar with. When I was at school it seemed like the only real history allowed to be taught by the national curriculum was twentieth century history. The rest of the lessons seemed to cover fairly mundane subjects such as 'women in Tudor Britain' and 'how clothes were washed in the days of the Regency'. Not particularly exciting.

But back to Hungary. I won't lie, I couldn't be bothered to go back and check my facts on the history of Hungary so this is largely done from memory, so please forgive the odd inaccuracy (I'm looking at you here father). At the start of the 20th century Hungary was the junior and somewhat reluctant partner in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, effectively ruled from Vienna by everyone's favourite European royal family, the Hapsburgs. At the end of the First World War the Empire was dissolved and Hungary was also taken apart. One of the treaties at the end of the War split the country, with Hungary coming out of the process having lost circa 70% of her territories to Romania, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. Here comes an anecdote.

Every music festival should have a tent of logical games

I've been to Hungary twice. The first time, in the summer of 2007, I was attending a week long musical festival called Sziget. (by the way, a week is too long to spend in a tent in Central European heat. Just so you know). On the first or second day we were there a drunk Hungarian man came over to speak to us and insisted on buying me a pint. This was because of the shirt I was wearing, an AC Milan top, apparently his favourite football team in the world. A free pint is always good, but the best thing about our new Hungarian friend (he told us to call him Steve as we wouldn't be able to pronounce his name, quite possibly true given how I struggled with the Hungarian language) was that he would spit on the floor every time you said 'France', 'French' or the name of any Frenchman. This was a game which didn't get old quickly. 'Steve' explained to us that all Hungarians hate the French because it was they who gave away most of the country in 1920. This hatred must be pretty strong to be passed down 3 or 4 generations. I don't know what role Britain played in these negotiations but we don't seem to be blamed for it to the same extent, in Steve's eyes at least...

Right, anecdote over and back to my three paragraph expression of sympathy for Hungary. The inter-war years were not amongst Hungary's proudest moments, the burden of war reparations and the Great Depression causing a drift to the right and towards one of the fashionable political ideologies of the time, fascism. Like its former Imperial partner, Austria, Hungary ended up on the side of the axis forces in the Second World War. As (hopefully) every schoolkid knows, this was not the winning side. Austria and Hungary both ended another war with little control over their own destiny, their future dependent on the decisions of others.

Austria formed the Second Austrian Republic, going from strength to strength and becoming one of the  world's richest countries. Hungary was not so lucky, falling on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain and having Communism forced on it by the Soviet Union for almost 50 years.

AND THAT IS WHY I FEEL SORRY FOR HUNGARY. Phew, that went on a while. It was originally meant to be a brief lighthearted introduction to my goulash recipe and ended up being a 600 word borefest. Sorry about that.

Signs of Hungary's Communist past

Americans hate Lennon, hence the policy of McCartneyism